ROCHESTER — Just days after announcing a new policy that may charge families with violations for their children's absent and tardy tendencies at school, the Rochester Police Department says they are pleased with the large amount of attention, stating they hope it will bring some awareness to the issue of truancy.

At the Rochester School Board's Special Services Committee meeting on Monday, police said they will soon issue court summonses to families with children who have been absent more than 15 days since the start of this school year. According to district data, 88 students fall into that category — from the start of this school year through Nov. 14, 531 students, from the elementary level to the high school, have been absent 5 to 9.5 days and 108 students have missed 10 to 14.5 days.

Det. Steve Gahan previously explained an arraignment date will be set for the worst 25 or 30 offenders. Parents will be summonsed to Rochester Circuit Court sometime in January and parents will then have the option to pay a large monetary fine or opt in to the “diversion program.” The program would cost less than $100 and would require a parent and child to attend classes at the police station for one-hour classes once a week over four weeks.

Gahan, who works in the police department's prosecution office, said the policy has stirred much criticism and praise from the community, though in the end, he hopes more families will want to take the program. He said, this policy is about putting “kids in seats.”

“This is not a money-making scheme. That's not our intent.” Gahan said. “… If the threat of being fined can be a motivator, then we're successful.”

The diversion program would entail classes for parents and children to be taken separately simultaneously. Classes will focus on the importance of attending school, which Gahan said leads to better lives for students.

“There are higher incidents of drug use, higher incidents of criminality, a higher chance of unemployment and an increased likelihood of needing to rely on the system to survive,” he said, regarding students who skip school.

Professional consultants will also be hired to sit down with families, to offer special services like food supply and other needs. In the final session, parents and their children will join together to discuss what they learned from the program.

Gahan also noted as the program progresses, if children and parents can change their behavior, their family will be exempt from the program.

“If that behavior can change between the time we start this program and the time we get down to their name, we're not going to charge them,” Gahan said.

Brenda Ramsdell, who has served as a district truancy officer for three years and works out of Spaulding High School, said she believes this new program can make a difference.

“It's going to take something that drastic because the truancy problem is really of epidemic proportions … ,” she said. “It's a big, big problem (but) it's a problem that we are now addressing head-on.”

Ramsdell said last year she made “house calls” and visited 670 students' home to speak with their parents about truancy-related issues. Sometimes her house calls require her to swing by in the mornings, on her way to work, to try to convince some students to leave home and go to school. Just this past week, the Monday and Tuesday before Thanksgiving, Ramsdell said she visited 58 homes to drop off notifications of truant behavior.

But, she said, in her experience, once parents are notified of a problem, they immediately try to fix it.

“I don't feel it's that they don't care … ,” she said. “I feel some people don't know how to approach it … I feel that a lot of the societal problems stem from perhaps a lack of parenting skills, in conjunction with perhaps a lack of supervision and poverty. And, all of those things can be overcome. … It's not the punishment that's our goal here. It's to help parents and to be able to help them with their children who don't want to go to school.”

Ramsdell said the district is also considering creating a new position, an “attendance monitor,” who would work with problem students before their absences and tardies lead to extreme truant behavior.

Gahan said he is looking forward to the next full Rochester School Board meeting, on Dec. 13 at 7 p.m. in City Hall, to “dispel” some of the rumors circulating about the diversion program.

“My intent is to show up at one of the meetings and dispel some of the myths and assumptions people are making,” he said. “ … If that behavior changes before us getting to them, the parents won't be charged because they've been successful. We're not going to charge them. We're looking for an overall reduction in truancy. This isn't about punishing the parents, or the students.”